popwreckoning

Can a band be raw and polished? I had never really thought about it until I saw White Rabbits at their Kansas City stop. Their sound had such strong, uninhibited emotions that it came off with raw garage-rock-band sound. But at the same time everything from vocals to percussion, were precise and perfectly timed, giving the show an overall sheen of quality and talent.

The night jumped between selections from It’s Frightening and a new album (to hopefully be released soon). The older songs got the crowd on its feet, while the newbies kept the curiosity alive.

“The Salesman (Tramp Life)” with its light and airy notes, started a gentle groove in the audience. One wouldn’t think this song would translate well to the stage, due to the fact that in general it’s a rather simplistic song. But between the melodic repetitions and hints of harmonies, this ended up being a great energy build for the evening.

Stepping back a few decades to an 80s folk/rock flavor was “They Done Wrong / We Done Wrong”. Guitars managed to squeeze an acoustic sentiment out of an electric model and when combined with a slap-beat from the drums, made this one intriguing to watch and soothing to hear.

Mixed in between a few new songs, [which unfortunately came to us without titles] was “Lionesse”. If the Rabbits can combine raw and polish, then it’s a not a stretch for them to combine dance-y with eerie. The beginning of this song is set so low on the bass notes that when met with whispering lyrics, goosebumps start to form. However eventually, we were able to see one of the main elements that makes the White Rabbits who they are – percussion. The entire night there wer two drummers on stage, but there were those select songs where each drummer played a significant role. This was one of those songs.

While main rhythm was kept on the kit, a handful of marching drums were given quite a beating. So much was going on stage that you didn’t know whether to dance or just stand there in amazement.

“Percussion Gun” was the entire reason I started listening to the Rabbits and it was apparent that this was the same for most of the audience. When the opening drum beats came bursting off the stage, cheers erupted. Soft and polished lyrics were set on top of distorted guitar strums and beats so quick Matthew Clark seriously had to be crazy in order to keep up. Again we were back to a base of minimal frill music, but there’s something about this band that never lets their sound come off as anything but amazing.

A short encore indulged the crowd with a couple more songs. Ending everything off with “Rudie Fails” a sound similar to that of how they started the evening. There was just enough of an up-tempo to keep the heads nodding and sashaying hips moving. The white keys really stood out as a main player with their cleverly placed chords.

A smaller venue was the perfect setting for a White Rabbits set. The amount of things happening on one stage at one time requires a setting for complete concentration. Not to mention the fact that the intimate approach just made the evening that much more entertaining.  And to top it off, the introduction of new music was a fantastic Christmas present.

Now, Now made a gargantuan impression with their small hands at Kansas City’s Recordbar on Thursday, December 1.

Sliding in perfect unison along the bellowing bodies of their semi-hollow Telecasters, the trio (although absent in bass) did not let simplicity override intensity.  Accompanied by voluptuous percussion and seemingly coagulated samples, the dark indie pop outfit attacked the unsuspecting venue with enrapturing hooks and espoused harmonies.

The evening hosted a largely female crowd in support of the famed Sick of Sarah. I think it’s pretty safe to say that while I had listened to Now, Now‘s Neighbors EP, I had underestimated the ferocity of the girls as guitarists. To watch their fingers waltz across the fretboard was almost too distracting from the fluidity of the music itself. Despite the slight aggression of being relatively somber instrumentalists, their soft-sung lyrics cut through the reverb andfuzz of the classic DS-1 Distortion to produce an almost-cuteness in the vein of Gregory and the Hawk. To directly quote SOS: “Those girls in Now, Now can sing to me any night.”

Showcasing Bradley Hale on drums, the set induced a mechanical head-nodding that trended by the end of their second song all the way into a climax with “Neighbors.” His precision with each crack on the snare followed by a sequence of rim clicks proved mesmerizing, forcing the audience to donate their eyes equally.

As the introductory band of the tour, Now, Now kept the set very characteristic to the members themselves: short and sweet.

Sick of Sarah took the stage next, followed by Deas Vail with a series of Christmas covers in light of the season. While each band produced an exciting and diverse performance, the energy was none compared to the temperament and honesty of Now, Now‘s exhibition.

Now, Now is:
Cacie Dalager- vocals, guitar, keyboard
Jess Abbot- guitar, vocals
Bradley Hale- drums, backing vocals

Review by Stephanie Castor
Photos by Stefanie Petrozz 

Long Beach, Calif. band, The Fling is getting a taste of the Midwest during this chilly month with Yukon Blonde. Both bands will be playing this upcoming Friday, December 2 in Omaha at Slowdown Jr and the very next day in Kansas City at the Riot Room.

Being on the road since October with David Vandervelde and Floating Action, they’re finishing up the third leg of tour with Canadian rockers, Yukon Blonde.

The Fling are currently supporting their recent seven song EP released on Dangerbird Records, What I’ve Seen. Along with the EP, you can view a video from their single “Dogpile” here.

Yukon Blonde also has a new EP out, Fire//Water, released in September on Dine Alone Records. Watch the “Water” video here.

These are both two bands you won’t want to miss especially on the same bill together. Check out their tour dates below, websites, and other cool things.

Tour Dates:
Thu, Dec 1    Ames, IA  @  The Maintenance Shop
Fri, Dec 2    Omaha, NE @   Slowdown Jr
Sat, Dec 3    Kansas City, MO @   Riot Room
Sun,Dec 4    Oklahoma City, OK @ The Conservatory
Tue, Dec 6    Little Rock, AR  @  Juanita’s Cantina
Wed, Dec 7    Dallas, TX  @  Double Wide
Thu, Dec 8    Houston, TX  @  Fitz Downstairs
Fri, Dec 9      Austin, TX  @  Emo’s Inside
Sun, Dec 11    Denver, CO  @  Larimer Lounge
Tue, Dec 13    Salt Lake City, UT  @  Kilby Court
Wed, Dec 14    Boise, ID  @  Neurolox
Fri, Dec 16    Spokane, WA  @  A Club
Sat, Dec 17   Seattle, WA @ Crocodile Café
Sun, Dec 18  Portland, OR @ Doug Fir
Wed, Dec 21 San Francisco, CA @ Brick & Mortar
Thu, Dec 22  Los Angeles, CA @ Echo

The Fling | website | facebook | twitter
Yukon Blonde | website | facebook | twitter

X is for Love is the first vinyl release for Golden Sound Records and Baby Teardrops. To celebrate, Baby Teardrops played a show at the Brick on November 25. Below are photos from the event:

Missed the show and want to grab a record? Head over to Golden Sound Records to buy one.

Photos: 2011 Todd Zimmer

A group of students from the University of Missouri – Kansas City have been working on getting a radio station up and running for the past three years. As close as they’ve ever been, they will be holding a fundraiser to help them buy equipment and other supplies they need.

The show has a solid local band lineup at the Recordbar in Kansas City on November 17 with Root and Stem, She’s a Keeper, Scouts, and Fullbloods. Make sure to check out the Facebook event and therecordbar.com for more information. Go out to the show to support local music and radio.

www.fullbloods.com
wearescouts.bandcamp.com
shesakeeper.bandcamp.com
rootandstemband.bandcamp.com

Explosions in the Sky played the Uptown Theater in Kansas City October 12. If you tell someone you saw or are going to see them, the initial reaction falls two ways: “What’s that?” or “I’m so jealous!” Whether you enjoy them while studying for an exam, working on a project, or baking a Mexican casserole, many would agree they are the perfect music to put on at track one and let it roll through the album and on to the next. Some would say EITS made the soundtrack to their life.

Their style and album structure is the emotional swing of an early twenties college student vacillating between stress and euphoria, darkness and excellentness. Attending their concert is not unlike going to a symphony. The music is fully instrumental with movement and smart development.

Their arrival to the stage was welcomed by applauding hipsters, yuppies, stoners, older professionals, and those who are all of the above. Plenty of plaid in the front. People relaxing in theatre seating in the back. They elected to start off slowly, which shouldn’t surprise anyone familiar with their discography. This was a production. A totally mind-altering experience for someone who hasn’t seen them live before.

After a clean intro, the hammer dropped with a bass hit and bright lights for just a beat, like a tease to the tension developing in the eager crowd. Then another and another. Finally they let loose. Some kid behind the rail started playing vicious air drums to the beat of the chemicals firing around in his head. Photographing nearby, I feared the worst for my equipment. This kid was somewhere else mentally, finally getting to release himself with his favorite band just feet away, loving every moment like the rest of the audience.

I still have a hard time believing I saw these people perform in real life. Most of the concert was spent building slowly with these brief moments of hard sound, covering selected tracks blended together with no dialogue. They played excellent tracks from their album The Earth is Not a Cold Dead Place as well as new pieces with various songs from their catalogue brushed in seamlessly.

Explosions in the Sky do not rely on powerful visual effects, light boards, smoke machines, or other accessories for their performances. They have minor colored backlights to maintain a certain mood, which swings throughout, complimented with timely dissonance, and discourse.

They are fantastic with their audible effects, all done with electric instruments. Screeching, ear piercing, make-you-go-crazy effects create the perfect setting similar to Pink Floyd’s psychedelic works, none-without peace and extremely clean, smart sound in between. Maybe this is a draw for those who enjoy their music to the fullest, the purists. EITS are a set of musicians and not some kid with a mac, cranking out glitchy effects developed from some binary code freak (Not to knock the style. It simply wouldn’t fit in this genre of instrumental music).

One interesting thing, maybe disappointing, was the difference in crowd’s ideas of when songs and movements started and ended. Since their concert is more of a performance, there are no starting and stopping points. They played straight through for around an hour and a half. People would shout to hear their own voice in the quiet sets, leaving people who know what’s coming to cringe. I would have liked a more polite crowd. Let the sound do its job. Enjoy what they’re doing and know when it’s right to yell and clap your hands red.

The crowd didn’t destroy anything ultimately for me or the people I sat in the back with. MC Ebony ‘Left E. Grove’ Simon attended, and, for him, the peak of the show hit on the drop-in of Greet Death, the opening track from their dark album Those Who Tell the Truth… He knows music well and is a fellow EITS fanatic. Greet Death is a moving, pressing piece with extremely dark tones. It certainly may have been the turning point in the concert, leaving the serenity of slower tracks behind.

I do disagree with him on the peaking moment. The concert built on itself. The way they started quiet and teased with bass hits, hard guitar sounds, and loud dissonance, the set compilation built and teased until the end. They built up a finale with beautiful repetition, getting louder and louder and louder and then, pow! Fade. “Thank you very much. That’s our show.” No encore.

I cracked a great smile. Some people watching around me said it was very strange to not have an encore. I think encores are turning into really predictable, planned events. I admit I hadn’t seen a show without the headliner playing one and was surprised as well, but I was so elated they didn’t. An encore wouldn’t make sense.

The tension constructed over the entire performance until the beautiful peak. Just like a fireworks display. Just like any of their albums. You don’t want to see a bottle rocket go off after a hundred grand worth of gunpowder and various elements explode above you. They compiled tracks from different albums, but played them together as one great, seamless piece. No reason to regress. They did what they came to do. Their work was done. The venue lit up. Everyone was smiling.

Review and photos by Mitch Favrow

Neon Indian visited Kansas City’s Recordbar on Tuesday. Although it was originally booked for Wednesday, the last minute change didn’t seem to deter any fans from coming out to the show.

It was a hot, sticky, cheap drink kind of night. Though a good majority of the, sold out, 18 and over crowd didn’t partake in that last part.

Purity Ring took the stage at 9:30. An hour late, rumored to be due to a very lengthy soundcheck by the headlining band. The bar was dark and quiet as the layers of deep, rich synth created a long swelling intro. Soon this was interrupted by a dry electric drum beat and the night had begun.

The Canadian band fronted by Megan James was a very a pleasant marriage of avant-garde, artsy, electronic music and a more mainstream, pop oriented sound. Their set was made even more impressive by the neon colored banner hung behind them and a creative DIY light show. The audience responded enthusiastically after almost every number. Sometimes playful, sometimes dramatic, this opening act toed the line very well.

Up next was Com Truise, DJ Seth Haley from New Jersey who used a live drummer in his set.

“What’s up Kansas City?” Haley quietly murmured, and then received a deafening response of hoots and hollers. The crowd was obviously getting excited at this point. I spied a few glow sticks light up around the room. Haley asked for the stage lights to be turned off and Com Truise’s set began.

The music was much more static and had less structure than that of the opening act’s. The set went from song to song smoothly creating a kind of trance-like moosh of beats and synth. But the dance-happy crowd didn’t seem to mind the repetition. Just before people were danced out Com Truise thanked Kansas City and ended his set with a hard-hitting, fuzzed out closer.

Finally, it was time to see what Neon Indian had to contribute to the evening. Some more delays during stage set up and a rather lengthy line check from the band only heightened the intense anticipation. When the music finally hit it was crisp, clean, and refreshing. Neon Indian are a very bold kind of electronic band. Instead of hiding the music in dark, muddy synth (much like the first two acts did) they let the melodies cut through with a bright clean tone. This sound is backed up by a very precise drummer and an energetic, bubbly frontman.

The leader of the band is Alan Palomo. He seems reserved and maybe even a bit shy at first, but on stage in the middle of a set he is in his element. Palomo is a confident and capable musician and frontman. And as a team the band is unstoppable.

The music is undeniably catchy, with keyboard melodies that continue until you simply can’t live without them. Though Neon Indian doesn’t quite offer everything to your standard radio listener they were by far the most mainstream and instantly likable act of the night. This is due to the simple structure of their songs and the repetition of the finely honed, catchy melodies. This is what 90% of the sold out crowd wanted and expected. An audience that Palomo called “the most insane crowd on tour.”

Near the end of the set Palomo admitted that, in the middle of their tour, he had lost track of which day of the week it was. So, he simply dubbed it “full moon day” and with that the band continued to work the crowd into a frenzy. When it was time for an encore the frontman graciously skipped over any more build up saying, “Usually this is where we leave the stage and try to act inconspicuous….But we just want to play another fucking song for you guys!” That song was “Heart: Decay”, from their newest album, and it was a solid song to close the set.

If you are a follower of the Kanas City music scene then you have probably been to Recordbar more times than you can count. Recordbar has established itself as one of the best venues for local and regional acts in the city. On this night, however, the venue was put in the position to show it’s true potential. It wasn’t a local bar crowd. This band brought these fans out. This big event shows that Record Bar is an elite music venue that has so much to offer the Kansas City music scene and music fans around the midwest.

Talking to Alan Palomo after his set I was able to ask him what he thought of the Kansas City fans and the venue. He responded with a big smile and said that the turn out was more than they had hoped for and called the night “awesome.” For Kansas City and Recordbar it was an awesome night that will hopefully land even bigger acts and bring more concert goers out in the future.

Review written by Mat Shoare

From the very beginning of Death Cab for Cutie‘s set at City Market on Monday night it was obvious that Death Cab has only sweetened with age. The mix of tweens (with their parent accompaniment), the typical Kansas City concertgoers, and those just looking to  be ‘Followed into the Dark’ made for a crowd that seemed unsure as to what to do when the music started. The opening song “I Will Possess Your Heart” made this all the more obvious. The elongated intro (as compared to the radio edit) left the casual Death Cab fan slightly confused, but for the avid music listener it built the perfect tension that would soon be released in a two hour set of Death Cab’s finest.

It would seem to be the norm in this day in age that when you are touring right after an album release, especially one as notable as Codes and Keys, you would tend to play mainly songs from that album, this was not the case with Death Cab for Cutie. It wasn’t until their fifth song they decided to introduce a track from their new album “Doors Unlocked and Open,” and did so to an enthusiastic crowd. In all, Death Cab only played five songs, out of twenty-three, from their most recent release. Those five were matched by five from Transatlanticism and another five from Plans and even included one track from their first release You Can play These Songs With Chords.

The most impressive part of the show for me was the reserve that Death Cab has. Their sound was flawless, never overplaying, and not like most Rock n’ Roll shows where you have a ringing in your ears for weeks. The one word that stayed in my mind from the entire experience was tasteful, Death Cab is always tasteful. Not even a two-drummer drum solo got out of hand, their lights only added to the atmosphere of City Market and never took away, they sounded exactly like you would hope they would, almost as if you were listening to their records at home with your 5,000 closest friends. Don’t get me wrong, they played their hearts out, but it seems as though they have perfected their craft to the point that they know what needs to be done, they know how to keep a crowd enthralled, they know how to appease old fans and new, and most importantly they know when to stop.

Setlist:

I Will Possess Your Heart
Crooked Teeth
We Laugh Indoors
A Movie Script Ending
Doors Unlocked and Open
Long Division
Grapevine Fires
Codes and Keys
What Sarah Said
I Will Follow You into the Dark
Title and Registration
You Are a Tourist
The New Year
President of What?
Company Calls
Some Boys
Soul Meets Body
Cath…
We Looked Like Giants
The Sound of Settling

Encore:
Brothers on a Hotel Bed
Stay Young, Go Dancing
Transatlanticism

Wayne Zimmerman contributed to this review
photos by Casey Osburn

In March, we put together a mixtape of Kansas City artists and gave them out at SXSW. Well, now everyone can have this wonderful composition of songs to themselves. For FREE! Yup, free. Completely and utterly free. Just head over to popwreckoning.bandcamp.com and download.

This was made possible by the awesome Element Recording Studios for partnering with us and by N8 for the artwork.

If you must have a hard copy, email casey@popwreckoning.com and we’ll send you one. Also, for free. A little gift for our amazing readers.

What do hip hop, rock and country have in common?

Seemingly nothing. Except they each contribute to Clay Hughes’ genre-bending album The Whether Machine.

Released on June 7 through Sharp County Records, various Midwestern musicians came together for the project, including producer JKR70, Lennon Bone (Ha Ha Tonka) and Mac Lethal, to name a few.

This cross-genre collaboration is just partially the reason this album could appeal to a wide range of music lovers. The other reason: singer and guitarist Clay Hughes. His low, soulful voice could be featured over any backdrop, attracting indie kids with tracks like “The Love I Gave Ya,” which predominantly embraces instruments, and hip-hop fans with tracks like “Confessin’,” highlighting emcees Johnny Polygon and Jabee.The fluid movement is sure to keep you interested and engaged, even if the style is not something you usually listen to – I knew when I first saw Clay Hughes live that I had never heard music quite like his (and I’ve been hooked since).